India's Reliance Big Entertainment has unveiled plans to provide development funds to the production vehicles of seven Hollywood stars, including Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions.

The deals were brokered by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) which represents the seven stars.

Reliance will create a development silo for each of the production entities and consider co-financing resulting projects.

The deals also secure Indian rights for films that Reliance co-finances.

Although the deals mean the US studios may have to strip out Indian rights to resulting projects, they offer a potential source of new finance at a time when hedge funds are drying up.

In addition, the Indian powerhouse hopes to attract suitable productions to India where it owns physical studios and facility companies.

Reliance chairman Amit Khanna said the size of the each development silo would not be fixed and depends on the projects that each star wants to develop. He added that Reliance would 'fully respect the first-look deals' that the stars have with various studios.

Separately Reliance has a deal to distribute Universal's catalogue on home video in India and is negotiating further distribution deals.



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